Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

After a commercial audition leads to a severe anxiety attack, Maud Maxwell packs her candlesticks, Navajo wall hangings, and wooden spoons and flees Los Angeles, her stagnant relationship, and a faltering acting career. While driving along a lonely two-lane desert highway, she wonders: Where is the perfect love, the children, the security of a grounded life? Maud believes the answer lies in Marengo, a small town outside Santa Fe, where her sister Lizzie resides. Now Marengo beckons to Maud like the North Star on a dark night.

Yet Maud's life seems glamorous to Lizzie, who longs for the kind of motion that sweeps her sister from city to city, realizing her art. Everyone had always assumed Lizzie would be a successful artist. But instead of fame, she had three children by three different fathers. Instead of Paris, she settled in Marengo, teaching and painting pictures for a greeting card company.

But Maud is not the only one drawn to Marengo. Jake Arboles has returned home after spending two years in Nashville trying to break into the songwriting business. He and Lizzie were balanced on the edge of commitment until their relationship ended abruptly?a loss that has haunted them both ever since.

The complex bond and unspoken resentments between sisters . . . the legacy of children who feel they never fulfilled their parents' expectations . . . the aching search for home and connection and community . . . the ever-changing landscape of family and those who define it . . . Sands Hall weaves these powerful elements into a brilliantly written novel ripe with discovery and wonder - and the realization that holding on to someone is really about letting go.

Synopsis

Hall's first novel details the story of two sisters, one an actress and the other an artistic painter, each at a turning point in their lives.

About the Author

Sands Hall received her B.A. in drama from the University of California, Irvine, and attended the Advanced Training Program at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. She holds an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers Workshop and a second MFA in theatre arts from the University of Iowa. She has worked extensively as an actor, including seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, the Old Globe Theatre, the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, and the Foothill Theatre Company, where she also writes and directs. She teaches in the University of California at Davis Extension Programs, for the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and for the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.